Never Say Never
Chapter 8 - Blood Prints
Disclaimer: Don't own Hermione or Draco or Harry or Ron or Hogwarts.
A/N: ok, whenever I don't put a '. . .'s POV' then that means its just in general POV, everything is written from a bystander's POV, just to clear things up if people have been confused about the POV changes. Cheers!
The door slammed painfully in Draco's face and he let out a long sigh. What did he do wrong this time? He wondered to himself exasperatedly and absently he flicked a strand of silver blonde hair out of his eyes, which had turned steely grey again.
"Damn." He muttered before he began to punch the wall in frustration, "Why does she have to act like that to me?!"
Draco stared at the hard wall, now stained with a bit of his blood and swore under his breath when he saw the gash on his hand. He ran a finger over the wound and looked numbly at the scarlet liquid, which had trailed onto the ground, and with a roll of his eyes he exited the bathroom quietly closing the door behind him.
[A few corridors away from the Prefect's Bathroom]
"Damn." Hermione muttered to herself as her guilty conscience took hold of her and she started to make her way back to the Prefect's Bathroom, just in case he was still there.
'But what if he's not? What if he's really annoyed at me?!' she wondered to herself sadly, the stark feeling of regret hitting her hard. 'I shouldn't be regretting anything, not being Malfoy's friend is fine with me. . .'
She turned a few more corners and she was standing in front of the statue again, taking a deep breath she whispered 'Lemon lime' and as the door swung open again, she felt utterly disappointed when there wasn't a trace of blonde hair anywhere.
But Hermione dismissed the disappointment along with the regret that she felt earlier because after all, Gryffindors never felt regret or disappointment for the filthy Slytherins she told herself firmly, willing herself to believe in that for her own sake.
Hermione looked at the bath again and the events, which had happened earlier, replayed themselves in her head, making her realize for the first time that something had changed in Malfoy, he wasn't so nasty anymore. 'Maybe he was telling the truth when he said he wanted to be friends.' Thought Hermione slowly, as she saw his face fall when she told him that he was despicable.
Then suddenly she stopped walking towards the bath, she whipped her head around and looked back at a spot near the door and her eyes widened when she saw the little pool of blood next to a wall with red spots cluttered around a particular area.
Hermione quickly ran back to that pool of blood and examined it closely, noticing that it wasn't there when she first came into the bathroom, to take a midnight bath. 'But. . .that would mean that the blood was spilled here after I left Malfoy. . .' thought Hermione incredulously, 'How many Prefects are on the loose after midnight?!'
Then another thought struck her and it made perfect sense.
Malfoy.
Draco's POV
I looked curiously around at this place that I had stumbled into, it appeared to be a sort of old common room. I honestly had no idea how I had gotten in here or anything but I didn't really care, all I wanted to do was sleep my pain away. I touched the fabric of one of the armchairs tentatively and feeling the smooth velvet underneath my finger, I slumped groggily into the armchair, not remembering that I was out and about exploring the school sometime around midnight.
"Need sleep. . ." I mumbled to myself before dropping off and sinking into a world of dark dreams curling up in the soft armchair.
"Aha." Whispered Hermione as she found another drop of blood on the carpet and she was still wondering to herself why the hell she was out here tracking down Malfoy by the drops of blood he had left whilst walking to wherever he was right now.
"Damn him, why does he have to make me feel so guilty." She muttered under her breath as her eyes saw another elusive drop of blood and she crept forward slowly, still under the protection of her Invisibility Cloak.
She fingered the chain that was around her neck smiling in spite of herself when she thought about who had given it to her. Harry had been out in Diagon Alley with her when she saw this beautiful silver necklace with a pendant in the shape of an angel on display and was contemplating on buying it when Harry had smiled at her and stopped her from buying it.
Months later she had opened a small parcel and saw the silver chain sparkling at her with a small note from Harry telling her that it was her birthday present in advance and even now, just thinking about it brought a smile to Hermione's face.
"Oh well, must get on with it." She grumbled shaking herself awake from her straying thoughts and she stealthily continued to creep along the corridor where Malfoy's 'blood prints' seemed to be leading her and she was just congratulating herself on not being caught all night when -
"Yes my sweet, sniff them out, sniff them out Mrs. Norris, sniff those treacherous students up late at night wandering around like fools. They should've known that we'll get them some day!" Filch's leering voice hissed to his beloved cat who's eyes were sweeping in the hallway before her.
Panicking, Hermione realized that if she didn't move quickly, Mrs. Norris would be able to sense her, Invisibility Cloak or not. 'Why did I have to take a bath with lots of fragrant bubbles?!' she thought with a shake of her head at her stupidity and without thinking she turned to her right and ran for her life.
"What the. . ." whispered Hermione disbelievingly to herself as she stopped suddenly looking at the substance that she had just gone through.
It was a solid wall, and she had just passed through it. 'Wow, I didn't know that this cloak could let me slip through walls. . .' she thought incredulously. She could see Mrs. Norris and Filch through a little spot in the wall pacing around the corridor at the exact spot where she had been standing only a few moments earlier. Filch was looking expectantly at his cat. When he realized that they had failed in finding whoever was wandering around after curfew, he cursed loudly and walked away skulking.
Hermione collapsed, letting herself lean lightly against the wall that had saved her from detention and marveled at the fact that she had found yet another secret room in the school.
She glanced around and saw many different armchairs of varying shapes and sizes and an old disused fireplace and there were also several paintings hanging on the other walls in the rectangular room, though the subjects of the portraits were all snoozing contentedly in their frames.
"This is certainly a very interesting night." Muttered Hermione absently to herself. With a small smile on her face she got up to explore the room further but as she was getting up she accidentally scraped the back of her neck on the rough wall behind her.
"Shit!" she gasped as her right hand found the place that was bleeding near the nape of her neck and it was bleeding quite profusely, much to her dismay. 'Guess I'll have to get back to my own common room, but I'll find this place again some day, I know it.' She thought wistfully to herself, realizing that this was actually an old common room.
"Brilliant!" she breathed happily, taking in just one last view of the grand old room before she touched the wall behind her gingerly making sure that it would work when she tried to walk through it again.
"I'll be back. . ."she whispered to the room as she slipped quietly from it's boundaries and back into the corridor. Little did she know that something else had also slipped quietly from her as she was leaving the room. . .
[Still in the 'mysterious' common room]
Draco stirred in his sleep and when he stretched out languidly, he hit his feet on the mahogany coffee table in front of him.
"Bollocks!" He exclaimed before coming to his senses and realizing that he wasn't in his warm four poster bed in the Slytherin common room. He looked warily around the room that he WAS in and saw with a shock that it was the place that he faintly remembered to be an old common room which he had accidentally walked into before he fell into a deep sleep.
Looking hopefully at the window opposite him he sighed in relief when he saw weak strands of grey light streaming through. 'Well, at least I'm not late for anything.' He thought with a grin and he stood up looking at his watch.
"4.21 am." He stated before continue to mutter to himself, "Plenty of time to get back to the Slytherin common room."
He looked around at the room again and swore loudly when he saw no door. 'How the hell am I supposed to get out of here?!' he thought desperately to himself.
Suddenly something on the ground caught the feeble light from the window and it winked at him, inviting him to pick it up. He strode over and bent down to examine whatever was glittering in the sunlight and his whistled appreciatively when he saw that it was a delicate silver chain with a pendant of an angel with a crystal set in the middle of it.
"Wonder who left it here. . ." he muttered under his breath before slipping it into his pocket, "Finders keepers."
Then he remembered that he was stuck in a common room that didn't actually have a door so he was basically trapped.
"Damn. Damn. Damn." He leaned on the wall behind him in defeat and heaved a long sigh settling himself in for a long wait for rescue when -
"What the hell?!" He had hit his head on solid ground as he was leaning back onto the wall and shaking his head and helping himself up he saw that he had passed through the wall that he had been leaning on previously.
"This is incredible!" he gasped realizing that he had found the exit from the room. He was back in the hallway from which he dimly remembered that he had been in sometime earlier in the night and quickly glancing around to check where he was in the school as well as checking to see if anyone else was around he grinned confidently and set off in the direction of the Slytherin common room.
"What an incredible night." breathed Hermione to herself as she got back into bed after putting both her cloaks back in their respective positions and relaxing her body in her soft bed.
Her hand went back to the base of her neck to check whether her spell to heal it had worked and smiling she felt the smooth skin under her palm. But the smile quickly turned into a frown as she felt the absence of the fine chain that Harry had bought her.
She fumbled around in her bed for it, surely it had just slipped off as she got in but to her immense disappointment there was absolutely no trace of a necklace against the white linen.
"Shit." She mumbled and she got out of her comfortable four poster and knelt down on the floor patting around blindly in the semi darkness. "It's gotta be here somewhere."
"Eh. Is that you Hermione?" Parvati said in a muffled voice still half- asleep. She opened one eye blearily and saw her room mate on all fours looking for something. "What are you doing? It's not dawn yet."
"I lost my necklace, you know the one with the angel and the crystal set in it." Hermione replied softly banging her fist on the ground in frustration.
"Listen Mione, maybe we'll find it in the morning ok? Let me get some beauty sleep first, then I'll help you later, I'm sure it's not gonna move on legs to a different place during the rest of our sleep." Said Parvati slowly trying to reason with a frantic Hermione.
"Yeah, sure. Thanks Parvati." She replied defeatedly climbing back into her bed and falling asleep quickly though subconsciously she realized that this was going to be one of her first nightmare free sleeps for a long time. . .
Draco smiled lightly as he looked at the beautiful chain in his palm again. 'I'll bet that Pansy will love this. Shame that she won't be getting it.' He thought jokingly to himself.
Once again, sleep was quickly taking over him and his eyelids drooped dangerously obscuring his vision and in a moment, there was deep even breathing announcing that Draco had fallen into a deep sleep himself and there was still a smile playing around the edges of his mouth.
i - A Dream
He was dragged to the centre of the dungeon and thrown pitilessly on the cold hard stone. His head banged on the ground and a slow trickle of red blood leaked out of a cut on the side of his scalp.
"What do you want." Draco said groggily, his head muddled and clouded.
"Your soul." Whispered a soft voice, yes soft but cunning.
"My. . .my soul?" replied Draco incredulously beginning to doubt this man's sanity, "Why?!"
"The mudblood." Was the voice's reply before Draco's world went black and everything disappeared. /i
Ok, if the italics don't show up, then dun blame me, just teach me how to put italics in ok?
Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter and keep it coming! Thanks again guys and hope u like this chapter! =) Review! psychohart
Chapter 8 - Blood Prints
Disclaimer: Don't own Hermione or Draco or Harry or Ron or Hogwarts.
A/N: ok, whenever I don't put a '. . .'s POV' then that means its just in general POV, everything is written from a bystander's POV, just to clear things up if people have been confused about the POV changes. Cheers!
The door slammed painfully in Draco's face and he let out a long sigh. What did he do wrong this time? He wondered to himself exasperatedly and absently he flicked a strand of silver blonde hair out of his eyes, which had turned steely grey again.
"Damn." He muttered before he began to punch the wall in frustration, "Why does she have to act like that to me?!"
Draco stared at the hard wall, now stained with a bit of his blood and swore under his breath when he saw the gash on his hand. He ran a finger over the wound and looked numbly at the scarlet liquid, which had trailed onto the ground, and with a roll of his eyes he exited the bathroom quietly closing the door behind him.
[A few corridors away from the Prefect's Bathroom]
"Damn." Hermione muttered to herself as her guilty conscience took hold of her and she started to make her way back to the Prefect's Bathroom, just in case he was still there.
'But what if he's not? What if he's really annoyed at me?!' she wondered to herself sadly, the stark feeling of regret hitting her hard. 'I shouldn't be regretting anything, not being Malfoy's friend is fine with me. . .'
She turned a few more corners and she was standing in front of the statue again, taking a deep breath she whispered 'Lemon lime' and as the door swung open again, she felt utterly disappointed when there wasn't a trace of blonde hair anywhere.
But Hermione dismissed the disappointment along with the regret that she felt earlier because after all, Gryffindors never felt regret or disappointment for the filthy Slytherins she told herself firmly, willing herself to believe in that for her own sake.
Hermione looked at the bath again and the events, which had happened earlier, replayed themselves in her head, making her realize for the first time that something had changed in Malfoy, he wasn't so nasty anymore. 'Maybe he was telling the truth when he said he wanted to be friends.' Thought Hermione slowly, as she saw his face fall when she told him that he was despicable.
Then suddenly she stopped walking towards the bath, she whipped her head around and looked back at a spot near the door and her eyes widened when she saw the little pool of blood next to a wall with red spots cluttered around a particular area.
Hermione quickly ran back to that pool of blood and examined it closely, noticing that it wasn't there when she first came into the bathroom, to take a midnight bath. 'But. . .that would mean that the blood was spilled here after I left Malfoy. . .' thought Hermione incredulously, 'How many Prefects are on the loose after midnight?!'
Then another thought struck her and it made perfect sense.
Malfoy.
Draco's POV
I looked curiously around at this place that I had stumbled into, it appeared to be a sort of old common room. I honestly had no idea how I had gotten in here or anything but I didn't really care, all I wanted to do was sleep my pain away. I touched the fabric of one of the armchairs tentatively and feeling the smooth velvet underneath my finger, I slumped groggily into the armchair, not remembering that I was out and about exploring the school sometime around midnight.
"Need sleep. . ." I mumbled to myself before dropping off and sinking into a world of dark dreams curling up in the soft armchair.
"Aha." Whispered Hermione as she found another drop of blood on the carpet and she was still wondering to herself why the hell she was out here tracking down Malfoy by the drops of blood he had left whilst walking to wherever he was right now.
"Damn him, why does he have to make me feel so guilty." She muttered under her breath as her eyes saw another elusive drop of blood and she crept forward slowly, still under the protection of her Invisibility Cloak.
She fingered the chain that was around her neck smiling in spite of herself when she thought about who had given it to her. Harry had been out in Diagon Alley with her when she saw this beautiful silver necklace with a pendant in the shape of an angel on display and was contemplating on buying it when Harry had smiled at her and stopped her from buying it.
Months later she had opened a small parcel and saw the silver chain sparkling at her with a small note from Harry telling her that it was her birthday present in advance and even now, just thinking about it brought a smile to Hermione's face.
"Oh well, must get on with it." She grumbled shaking herself awake from her straying thoughts and she stealthily continued to creep along the corridor where Malfoy's 'blood prints' seemed to be leading her and she was just congratulating herself on not being caught all night when -
"Yes my sweet, sniff them out, sniff them out Mrs. Norris, sniff those treacherous students up late at night wandering around like fools. They should've known that we'll get them some day!" Filch's leering voice hissed to his beloved cat who's eyes were sweeping in the hallway before her.
Panicking, Hermione realized that if she didn't move quickly, Mrs. Norris would be able to sense her, Invisibility Cloak or not. 'Why did I have to take a bath with lots of fragrant bubbles?!' she thought with a shake of her head at her stupidity and without thinking she turned to her right and ran for her life.
"What the. . ." whispered Hermione disbelievingly to herself as she stopped suddenly looking at the substance that she had just gone through.
It was a solid wall, and she had just passed through it. 'Wow, I didn't know that this cloak could let me slip through walls. . .' she thought incredulously. She could see Mrs. Norris and Filch through a little spot in the wall pacing around the corridor at the exact spot where she had been standing only a few moments earlier. Filch was looking expectantly at his cat. When he realized that they had failed in finding whoever was wandering around after curfew, he cursed loudly and walked away skulking.
Hermione collapsed, letting herself lean lightly against the wall that had saved her from detention and marveled at the fact that she had found yet another secret room in the school.
She glanced around and saw many different armchairs of varying shapes and sizes and an old disused fireplace and there were also several paintings hanging on the other walls in the rectangular room, though the subjects of the portraits were all snoozing contentedly in their frames.
"This is certainly a very interesting night." Muttered Hermione absently to herself. With a small smile on her face she got up to explore the room further but as she was getting up she accidentally scraped the back of her neck on the rough wall behind her.
"Shit!" she gasped as her right hand found the place that was bleeding near the nape of her neck and it was bleeding quite profusely, much to her dismay. 'Guess I'll have to get back to my own common room, but I'll find this place again some day, I know it.' She thought wistfully to herself, realizing that this was actually an old common room.
"Brilliant!" she breathed happily, taking in just one last view of the grand old room before she touched the wall behind her gingerly making sure that it would work when she tried to walk through it again.
"I'll be back. . ."she whispered to the room as she slipped quietly from it's boundaries and back into the corridor. Little did she know that something else had also slipped quietly from her as she was leaving the room. . .
[Still in the 'mysterious' common room]
Draco stirred in his sleep and when he stretched out languidly, he hit his feet on the mahogany coffee table in front of him.
"Bollocks!" He exclaimed before coming to his senses and realizing that he wasn't in his warm four poster bed in the Slytherin common room. He looked warily around the room that he WAS in and saw with a shock that it was the place that he faintly remembered to be an old common room which he had accidentally walked into before he fell into a deep sleep.
Looking hopefully at the window opposite him he sighed in relief when he saw weak strands of grey light streaming through. 'Well, at least I'm not late for anything.' He thought with a grin and he stood up looking at his watch.
"4.21 am." He stated before continue to mutter to himself, "Plenty of time to get back to the Slytherin common room."
He looked around at the room again and swore loudly when he saw no door. 'How the hell am I supposed to get out of here?!' he thought desperately to himself.
Suddenly something on the ground caught the feeble light from the window and it winked at him, inviting him to pick it up. He strode over and bent down to examine whatever was glittering in the sunlight and his whistled appreciatively when he saw that it was a delicate silver chain with a pendant of an angel with a crystal set in the middle of it.
"Wonder who left it here. . ." he muttered under his breath before slipping it into his pocket, "Finders keepers."
Then he remembered that he was stuck in a common room that didn't actually have a door so he was basically trapped.
"Damn. Damn. Damn." He leaned on the wall behind him in defeat and heaved a long sigh settling himself in for a long wait for rescue when -
"What the hell?!" He had hit his head on solid ground as he was leaning back onto the wall and shaking his head and helping himself up he saw that he had passed through the wall that he had been leaning on previously.
"This is incredible!" he gasped realizing that he had found the exit from the room. He was back in the hallway from which he dimly remembered that he had been in sometime earlier in the night and quickly glancing around to check where he was in the school as well as checking to see if anyone else was around he grinned confidently and set off in the direction of the Slytherin common room.
"What an incredible night." breathed Hermione to herself as she got back into bed after putting both her cloaks back in their respective positions and relaxing her body in her soft bed.
Her hand went back to the base of her neck to check whether her spell to heal it had worked and smiling she felt the smooth skin under her palm. But the smile quickly turned into a frown as she felt the absence of the fine chain that Harry had bought her.
She fumbled around in her bed for it, surely it had just slipped off as she got in but to her immense disappointment there was absolutely no trace of a necklace against the white linen.
"Shit." She mumbled and she got out of her comfortable four poster and knelt down on the floor patting around blindly in the semi darkness. "It's gotta be here somewhere."
"Eh. Is that you Hermione?" Parvati said in a muffled voice still half- asleep. She opened one eye blearily and saw her room mate on all fours looking for something. "What are you doing? It's not dawn yet."
"I lost my necklace, you know the one with the angel and the crystal set in it." Hermione replied softly banging her fist on the ground in frustration.
"Listen Mione, maybe we'll find it in the morning ok? Let me get some beauty sleep first, then I'll help you later, I'm sure it's not gonna move on legs to a different place during the rest of our sleep." Said Parvati slowly trying to reason with a frantic Hermione.
"Yeah, sure. Thanks Parvati." She replied defeatedly climbing back into her bed and falling asleep quickly though subconsciously she realized that this was going to be one of her first nightmare free sleeps for a long time. . .
Draco smiled lightly as he looked at the beautiful chain in his palm again. 'I'll bet that Pansy will love this. Shame that she won't be getting it.' He thought jokingly to himself.
Once again, sleep was quickly taking over him and his eyelids drooped dangerously obscuring his vision and in a moment, there was deep even breathing announcing that Draco had fallen into a deep sleep himself and there was still a smile playing around the edges of his mouth.
i - A Dream
He was dragged to the centre of the dungeon and thrown pitilessly on the cold hard stone. His head banged on the ground and a slow trickle of red blood leaked out of a cut on the side of his scalp.
"What do you want." Draco said groggily, his head muddled and clouded.
"Your soul." Whispered a soft voice, yes soft but cunning.
"My. . .my soul?" replied Draco incredulously beginning to doubt this man's sanity, "Why?!"
"The mudblood." Was the voice's reply before Draco's world went black and everything disappeared. /i
Ok, if the italics don't show up, then dun blame me, just teach me how to put italics in ok?
Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter and keep it coming! Thanks again guys and hope u like this chapter! =) Review! psychohart